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This year's birthday is something special - I turn 40. That's why I look back and reflect - publicly in our blog. Because: I see again and again how amazed people around me are when I tell them my story, how everything started with my entrepreneurship. This article is intended to inspire, show you some real-life moments and demonstrate: Yes, even potatoes in tomato water can grow to something that you never dared to dream of. MY SITUATION IN SPRING 2010 In May 2010, I started my adventure of "entrepreneurship" and founded HCG corporate designs. If you had asked me a few months earlier if I would ever start my own business, I would have said "never in my life" . After all, I wasn't a particularly risk-taking person - back then. However, over many months from 2009 to spring 2010, a situation came up that was fueled by several factors. At that time I was a full-time employee in the financial sector. The services of this company were (and still are) very good, but I didn't really like the job itself and it didn't keep me mentally busy. Even in the previous jobs in quality and process management, I was too often underchallenged. I was bored, I couldn't even begin to tap into my potential and nobody was interested in promoting my talents or using them for their businesses. However, in my last job (in the bespoke financial sector), there was an even bigger problem: bullying at work. In addition, some of my boss's business partners wanted to start a physical relationship with me, one even offered me money for it - I was shocked and disgusted. I was confronted with sexist sayings and actions and experienced the revenge of a business partner who was interested in a relationship with me by spreading rumours about me and defaming me. Fortunately, my boss recognised this and paid no attention to this defamation. Nevertheless, he was not shy himself when it came to bullying either: on my last day at work he grabbed and shook my nose so hard that I could still feel my nose hours later, he even pulled the secretary's hair. What I really enjoyed during this time, however, was my part-time DJ job on the weekends. I had to express my creativity, and I did so behind the DJ booth. Music, vinyls, dancing people - I liked that. Understandably, it had become more and more difficult over time to follow both my office job in the financial sector and my DJ job. As long as I was DJing in Europe, everything was fine. A performance here, a performance there, Europe is a small continent. At the weekend I was the celebrated DJ, during the week I was in the office. Somehow I always found this contrast very amusing. Over the years, my DJ career went through the roof more and more - especially from around 2009. My DJ agency at the time gave me a choice: I either quit my secure office job and am available as a DJ for much larger and longer tours; or I'll keep my secure office job and my DJ career can't grow any further. This was a very difficult situation for me. There was another aspect, too: In the spring of 2010 I decided to buy an apartment. I went from bank to bank to apply for the loan. What I heard from most of the banks left me speechless: "Ms. Gamper, get married and then come back to apply for the loan again." I was single at the time and didn't earn too bad (mainly thanks to my DJ part-time job). About ten years later I applied for another loan - this time for a flat as an investment. Since the sayings of the bankers from back then were still ringing in my ears, I brought in a financial advisor who arranged everything for me. The day of signing the loan contract came, I was about to sign it and couldn't resist confronting the banker with what the bankers had said back then. I wanted to hear his opinion before signing the contract. He was taken aback and confirmed that such comments from his colleagues were inappropriate and apologised on behalf of his colleagues. I signed and bought and invested in an apartment. A RADICAL NEW BEGINNING My situation in spring 2010 brought me to my knees mentally and I decided to make a radical new start. I quit my job, started my own business (as a career changer - which hardly anyone believes me to this day, if you look at my work ) and founded HCG corporate designs. I consumed just about everything there was in terms of education, courses (both paid and free) and learning materials on the internet and educational institutions and stuffed my brain so full of knowledge that I barely had time to sleep. I knew: I had to get on my feet quickly and accelerate. Fortunately, it was always easy for me to learn independently and on my own. I also taught myself how to mix music on the DJ booth and how to skilfully mix records. Yes, I DJed with vinyls and it took me almost three months until I finally managed to mix two records perfectly. In my DJ job, a big challenge came up: My agent at the time, who arranged (or was supposed to arrange) gigs for me and gave me the choice of “either an office job or a DJ job”, cancelled all previously confirmed DJ gigs after I quit my secure office job. I was shocked and personally very disappointed - after all, we had known each other for a few years and were friends. I was now financially in a dead end. I still don't know with 100% certainty why my agent at the time acted like that. However, there was a suspicion that he wanted to make me financially dependent on him. He could have lowered my DJ fee to whatever he wanted and it would have been easier to “sell” me as a female DJ to male club owners and promoters. You have to know that some female DJs don't earn most of their money with their performances, but with sexual services. I don't know how it is nowadays, but it was like that then, primarily on an international level and especially in Muslim countries (UAE, Indonesia, etc.). A club promoter in Dubai also offered me a four-figure sum for 20 minutes... This kind of "deal" was always a thorn in my side, which is why I always tried to ignore it (looking back, I think how naive I was). Every time I got such a "request" I was completely shocked. Interestingly I was mainly confronted with it in connection with my DJ agency. Before and after working with this DJ agency, this topic hardly ever came up. And so it happened that my well-paid DJ gigs were all cancelled after I quit my secure office job. A financial fiasco for me. I really felt cheated. POTATOES IN TOMATO WATER It is always said that all beginnings are difficult. Starting your own business is particularly difficult. HCG corporate designs was still in its infancy. I remember one Friday when I only had 16 Euros and 23 cents in my bank account. I had to buy groceries from it. Neither a new design job nor a new DJ gig was in sight at that time. I was financially drained. So it happened that I bought the cheapest groceries I could find at the discount store: potatoes and mashed tomatoes. I bought a lot of the potatoes, after all they are the ones that fill you up. I stretched the mashed tomatoes with water and seasoned them with salt and pepper. So I had very cheap food for about two or three weeks: potatoes in tomato water. After the bitter disappointment with my DJ agency, I left the agency and managed myself from then on. So it happened that after a while I went on tour as a DJ again - for example through India three times in one year. One tour was still in the accounts of my "old" DJ agency, the other two tours I arranged myself - including threats from the agency and fears about physical wellbeing. I was very grateful to my Indian tour manager for ensuring my safety through security and bodyguard. The five-figure fees for such a DJ tour were a blessing for me and my bank account. The time with potatoes in tomato water was over - but I haven't forgotten it to this day (and probably never will). THINGS STARTED TO CHANGE For my last performance as a DJ, I flew to São Paulo in Brazil for two days. I was booked as the headliner of an open air. I knew this would be my last gig - after 7 years of DJing. However, I didn't tell anyone about my plan to give up my DJ career. I just wanted to save myself from a lot of drama. For any music artist, the moment they leave the stage and return to their hotel room is their worst moment. This sudden 180 degree turn from stage, adrenaline and a great audience to silence and solitude in a hotel room in a country you don't even know is simply horrible. After this last booking in São Paulo, however, this moment was particularly bad for me - because I had decided: I put down the headphones and end my DJ career. Something that I had built up over many years with a lot of effort was now over. That night I cried many tears on the other side of the Atlantic. But even today I still believe that it was the right decision at the right time. Slowly but surely things went uphill with HCG corporate designs. Of course I had to reconsider the positioning and the target group here and there and adjust it accordingly. But this fine tuning paid off. Over the years, the high standards I set for myself, my quality awareness and my striving for excellence have paid off in every respect. Over the years things went steadily uphill and I understood more and more that quality always prevails in the long run. MY LIFE TODAY Today I look back on twelve years of HCG corporate designs and am happy about my business, the quality seal of the initiative corporate design from designaustria , the status as a WIX partner , happy clients from 25 industries from eight countries on four continents, a great team and regular 6-figure annual sales. Today I am thankful for the bad situation in spring 2010, because it forced me to do everything humanly possible to escape from this situation. It was an enormous effort, but my life today is the complete opposite of my life back then. Today I live a life that I would never have dreamed of: my own business, in which I can perfectly combine creativity and business administration, great clients, exciting projects, 100% self-determination, travelling thanks to remote work and financial independence. However, this life today is also hard. Really hard - but in a positive way. It takes a lot: 80-hour work weeks were not uncommon for me. Today, however, it's not quite as "bad" anymore, because I know how productivity works . In addition, I now work with a small team that supports me. We all work remotely and I fulfill my big dream of travelling the world - even if unfortunately there is often far too little free time to see as much as I would like to. A problem I'm still struggling with but I'm working on a solution (whatever that might look like). Nevertheless: Most of the people in my private environment are shocked when they see what it takes to work out the life I live today. I pay a high price for this life - primarily in terms of time, personal life, energy and strength. But I'm willing to pay that price. Not everyone is willing to go down this path and I can totally understand it. For me , however, it was the right path. WHAT I REALLY CARE ABOUT Because of my story, which you now know a little, it is very important to me to inspire people to live a self-determined life. I know so many people who procrastinate their dreams and therefore miss a lot in life. Life is short and you should always make the best of it. As you can see, my potatoe-in-tomato-water dilemma has grown into a fine, small company with regular six-figure annual sales. I hope this blog article has inspired you and shown you what is possible if you consistently pursue your dreams and remain true to yourself, always and without exception. If entrepreneurship is also your big goal, we will be happy to support you with a first-class brand design and web design . With this, you set the course for a serious and professional image that will convince your customers right from the start. You are also welcome to purchase our website webinar or book a Pick my Brain session with me personally.

In fall 2020 we ran a live webinar on branding and website design with Wix. Because: For some entrepreneurs, the decision for a website provider feels like a kind of "forced marriage" with a spouse they hardly know. After all, logo design , brand design , website design and all the rest that goes with a professional company appearance is completely new territory for every entrepreneur at least once in their life. A certain amount of nervousness is completely normal when it comes to this topic. A few weeks before the webinar, we conducted a small survey and wanted to know what entrepreneurs were really thinking about a lot. The biggest unknown "X" was which website provider you should choose when you are about to start a new website. That's why we ran this webinar . The feedback from the participants was very positive and we were still being asked about it weeks later. We have now improved the webinar, added some new features (for example insights into Editor X) and use real live examples from our daily design agency practice to show what is possible with Wix and Editor X, which features are best suited for different scenarios and where we can specifically help. In short: a popular "on demand" webinar that you don't want to miss out on.

Reading a magazine on a tablet can be a challenging thing – especially when there is no good navigation and the user does not know where to go next at the end of a page. In fact, there are four possible directions to swipe to. Here I show you seven examples of great navigation that improves the usability for the reader. INSPIRE (BY ADOBE) The bottom right arrow shows that the user has reached the end of the article and would have to scroll up to go back to the beginning of the article. However, it does not tell the user where to scroll next in order to read the NEXT article. The user has to find that out himself. Adobe should have thought about the user-friendliness a bit more here. ZMK AKTUELL I did the ZMK Aktuell app for the Spitta Verlag in Balingen (Germany). Based on the print design, the user can see the category in the top right corner. At the bottom left, the user sees where he currently is (third page of three pages of the article). To the right of it you see „zum Artikelanfang“ (translation: „back to start of article“). By tapping this, the user is directed back to the beginning of the article (page 1/3 in this case). The bottom right arrow shows the user to scroll to the right to get to the next article. THE RED BULLETIN At the end of each article in the Red Bulletin, the user sees small arrows pointing to the left and to the right. They indicate where to scroll for the previous or next article. The home button in the middle directs the user back to the starting page of the app magazine. The app icon top left opens up the content table. Well executed, I think. WIRED (UK) The Wired Magazine (UK edition) has a black navigation bar on the left handside all the way through the article. The white arrow pointing down shows the user to scroll down to continue reading the article. Reaching the end of the article, the white arrow pointing up with the hint „top“ explains exactly what it does. BLICKPUNKT LKW+BUS Based on the print editorial design of my long-term client Blickpunkt LKW+BUS, I designed the app magazine. The white arrow at the bottom right shows the user to scroll down to read the article. The black arrow in the bottom right corner tells the user to swipe to the right to get to the next article. The white arrow with black outline brings the user back to the beginning of the article when tapping on it. ZF DRIVE The navigation of the ZF Drive app is really interesting. A plus symbol in the light grey box at the bottom left opens up the navigation. Reaching that, the user can go to the Kiosk, start page, table of contents, to the previous or next article. The minus symbol closes the navigation again. INFOGRAPHICS BY HCG CORPORATE DESIGNS When creating my app „Infographics by HCG corporate designs“, I decided to go for a consistent white menu bar at the bottom of each page. As this is not a magazine but a collection of static and interactive/animated infographics I’ve designed over the years, it’s quite practical for the user to go to different pages at any time. The arrows pointing left and right show how to get to the previous or next page. If you want to publish your publication on a tablet, simply get in touch with me to get a free quote. #android #ios #ipad #magazine #tablet #interactive #ux #digitalpublishing #navigation #userexperience

Adobe has launched a new application on the market: Adobe Comp. It is intended for tablet based sketching and drafting designs for different purposes. A self-experiment: The Adobe Comp App is free and I downloaded it on my iPad. For my test, I select my desired format – practical! A canvas opens up with the selected dimensions. Here I can do different things: placing pre-defined shapes, photos (Attention: Other graphic designers report about very bad photo resolutions when exporting!), writing text – as expected, TypeKit is implemented. Drawing a simple circle works out fine and the Adobe Comp App translates that correctly into a neat circle – as if I had made it with Illustrator. Very nice. But when I draw more complex shapes, this does not work. As you can see in the example shown below, the Adobe Comp App translates my individual shape into a „nothing“ – empty space. This is where the magic of Adobe Comp already stops. Very disappointing. At the end of your sketching process, you can upload your „compositions“ into your Adobe Creative Cloud account and get the file from there and continue working on it on your computer/laptop. My conclusion: Again, Adobe have invested money, time and staff into something that is not fully sophisticated and does not provide much additional value to professional designers. The time you invest in working with Adobe Comp, you might as well invest in the software product best suited for your design project. Adobe Comp can be considered as some sort of substitute for a sketch book – if you’re on the road and want to quickly create a „professional“ design on the go. It’s a typical cloud feature for people who prefer drawing their sketches on a tablet rather than a piece of paper. I think I won’t ever use Adobe Comp myself. #adobe #adobecomp #app #creativecloud #draw #illustration #interactive #ipad #notepad #tablet

Do you know this situation? You spend days preparing for an important presentation to customers, business partners or colleagues. Then day X is here and the nightmare begins: people are bored, play on their phones and fight to not fall asleep. All the effort and work you put into your presentation seems useless. GOOD DESIGN FOR BETTER PRESENTATIONS Good design can help! While our design tips for better presentations won't guarantee you 100% attention from every single person in your audience, they will definitely make your presentation more successful by keeping your audience more interested and engaged. Are you ready for fewer snore noises and more interest within your audience? Here we go! TIP #1: LESS IS MORE Less is often more. This means: Place as little text as possible, but as much as necessary on a slide. Keywords or short amounts of text are definitely better than whole sentences. The reason is clear: The presentation slides should support what was said and not repeat it one to one. You probably know this from your own experience: You are sitting in a presentation, a slide is shown and you try to briefly read over the looong text on the slide while the speaker is speaking. You cannot focus on both at the same time. The situation is different, for example, with quotes that are important. These can be shown in large text on a slide, but the presenter should read them loud and clear. This works best as it reinforces the message of the quote. In addition, it is important to ensure that there is enough white space . This gives the text more room to breathe and doesn't overwhelm your audience. Your presentation will be better if you have more slides with brief text than a few slides with lots of text. TIP #2: BE CAREFUL WITH FONTS & COLOURS Be careful when mixing fonts! Make sure not to mix too many fonts with each other. Two or three fonts are enough. Everything else tires the eye - and brings no benefit. Don't underestimate the power of typography ! The choice of colour is about two essential aspects: optimal legibility and good contrast. However, when choosing the colour, be careful not to use too many different colours together. Subtle colours such as light grey, eggshell or white are well suited for the background. The colour for the font must have sufficient contrast to the background. It should be noted that dark writing on a lighter background is generally easier to read. For smaller text or "deliberate exceptions", lighter colours can then be used for the font with darker colours for the background. Examples: black font on white background dark grey font on light grey background dark blue font on an eggshell-coloured background dark red font on light pink background and so on … For special highlights, it is best to choose an accent colour that offers sufficient contrast. This allows you to emphasise individual elements on a presentation slide. Examples: green accent colour for a black font and white background red accent colour for a dark grey font and light grey background pink accent colour for a dark blue font on eggshell background and so on … TIP #3: TIME NAVIGATION "How long is that going to take?" Admittedly, a question that isn't something you like to hear when you're giving a presentation. Normally, however, you can tell by looking at your audience if this question is even "thought"... A subtle time navigation is a great solution here. You are probably familiar with a time navigation in the form of progress bars, which grow further depending on how far you have come in completing a questionnaire, for example. People love to see they make progress! You can utilise this positive effect, which everyone loves to experience, in your presentation design by incorporating a subtle time-based navigation bar. TIP #4: THE GRID MAKES THE DIFFERENCE Grids help the audience to orient themselves easily and draw logical conclusions. In this way, grids ensure a harmonious division of individual elements - instead of creating confusion. TIP #5: BE CAREFUL WHEN USING ICONS Icons are great. Unfortunately, the mistake is made far too often to use icons in an inflationary manner. Here an icon, there an icon - icons are often placed like wild growth, as in "look how cool we are, we use icons!" . The same applies here: less is more. Icons should be placed where they make sense and support the message of the text and/or spoken word. A "meaningless" use of icons is ugly, seems forced, inharmonious and counterproductive. Icons should subtly support the text or what is being said - not the other way around. In addition, attention must be paid to a visual constant. That means: Use icons in the same style or - ideally - in your brand design . For example, look at the icons we made for our client Spedifort as part of the rebranding . TIP #6: PHOTO CIRCUS Images play a key role in presentations because they convey emotions. In order for these to be transported as intended, images should fit together beautifully and have a similar colour mood. TIP #7: PRESENTATION IN YOUR BRAND DESIGN In order to support a serious and professional image, it is essential to design the presentation in your company’s brand design. Professional design agencies always provide you with a brand design manual as part of the brand design development , so that you can work flexibly and easily.

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is: our first ever office collection! We made sure to include all the essentials a stylish office really needs and are super excited to ship your favourite items straight to your doorstep. Yes, we ship worldwide! The HCG office collection features beautiful laptop bags in two different sizes (13“ and 15“), cool beanbag covers to sit on, stainless steel drinking cups with metal straw, handy notepads, mousepads, super-stylish weekender bags and is exclusively available through HCG corporate designs. PICK YOUR FAVOURITE SIGNATURE COLOUR All items of the HCG office collection come in our four signature colours - red, yellow, blue and turquoise. Tip: Click on the pictures to see the relevant items in the shop. 0-99-91-0: this is the CMYK colour code for our signature red, and here it comes with vertical lines in white and a darker red shade with the CMYK colour code 0-100-66-42. Our signature red marks all services related to brand design and website design . 77-12-0-0: this is the CMYK colour code for our signature blue which we combined with a darker blue tone with CMYK code 100-35-0-0 . We use our signature blue to mark all print design services like brochures, flyers or magazines. 0-4-95-0: this is the CMYK colour code for our signature yellow. Along with vertical lines in white and a slightly darker yellow shade with CMYK code 0-11-70-0, it will brighten up your day! We use yellow to mark our infographic design services . 58-12-17-2: this is the CMYK colour code for our signature turquoise. Along with a darker turquoise shade with the CMYK colour code 75-0-11-45, it looks super cool. Our signature turquoise marks all app design services , like app catalogues , regular app magazines or digital sales brochures. DID YOU NOTICE? The pattern on all items of the HCG office collection is inspired by the straightness and slickness of our brand design - values that we live on a daily basis. By the way, you can see those white vertical lines throughout our entire brand design, on our social media profiles as well as on our website. The white vertical line serves as the secondary style element and is derived from our logo design . EXCLUSIVE & SUSTAINABLE All items of our HCG office collection are exclusively available through HCG corporate designs. Every single item is designed with passion, affection to detail and produced on demand. This avoids over-production and makes the collection sustainable. In addition to benefits for the environment, this innovative „produce on demand“ approach removes the risk of stock overload or stock shortage. Production, handling and shipping are outsourced to specialists. This is called dropshipping, by the way. HOW TO LAUNCH YOUR OWN ONLINE SHOP You want to launch your own online shop? No matter if with or without dropshipping - we've got you covered. Discover our Premium Package on WIXpert.design or get in touch via the contact form .

It's often said that designers and programmers don't get along very well. This does not mean they have a personal struggle, but communication is often an issue - and the fact that designers and developers live in different worlds, but need to communicate perfectly with each other - in the interests of the customer. We met Alejandro Hirsch , a programmer in Innsbruck with Colombian roots, for an interview. Helene Clara Gamper: Hi Alejandro, you're a programmer. On your LinkedIn-profile you are a "full stack web developer" . Tell me, what does a "full stack web developer" do? Alejandro Hirsch: Hi Helene. A "full stack web developer" is a programmer who works in the development of web applications on both the backend and frontend. The backend includes databases and other server services in programming languages such as MySQL, PHP or Node.js. Frontend means the user interface, as in HTML, JavaScript and CSS, for example. HCG: How long have you been working as a developer? Alejandro: Since 2016. HCG: The term programmer is very broad and rather abstract for an outsider. So that we can get a better picture of your work - what specifically do you usually program and which software do you use for it? Alejandro: In fact, there are many types of programmers. But there are two tools that we programmers almost always use: One is the integrated development environment (IDE), such as VS Code. The other is a distributed version control tool called Git. I also use DevTools, which are tools built into web browsers. Specifically, I'm currently mainly programming in Vuejs or Reactjs, which requires knowledge of HTML, TypesCript (JavaScript), Sass or Tailwind (both CSS). HCG: I can remember my early years in 2010, 2011, 2012... Programming and design were still two completely different worlds that were really difficult to unite. Unfortunately, there were often problems with the technical implementation of the designs I created - the classic love-hate relationship between programmers and designers (laughs) . That's why I moved the entire IT execution for websites and apps internally many years ago - probably the best decision ever. But tell me, how do you see it as a programmer? What are your experiences in the interaction between design and IT? Alejandro: They are still completely different worlds. However, today it is much easier for the programmers to implement the requirements of the designers. Well, it's always been a one-way street for me anyway, but I didn't have a problem with that at all. I never had to say "no, that's not possible". As long as the designs are professionally created and shared, and details such as responsiveness or on-hover effects are clarified, there should be no friction. HCG: What is your workflow like when you code? What happens when someone hires you to code a website? Alejandro: Broadly speaking, there is usually a meeting with the project manager to discuss the details. It can also be the case that the result should deviate a bit from the design specification. Of course, I ask a lot of "what if" questions to be clarified by the project manager. After that, everything is pretty straight forward. I study the design (e.g. with Figma), then I write the necessary code so that it looks like the design pre-defined and does what it is supposed to from a functional aspect. Then I pass my result on to the project manager via a stage environment. There he can look out for functional and cosmetic bugs. After that, I fix the bugs and if everything is okay, you can deploy the site live. HCG: What do you say when someone asks you to code a website but there is no design? After all, there is no website without a design. Or do you work with templates? What do you do when a client doesn't have a design but wants a website? Alejandro: Well, there are many websites with no design, for example web applications. Those customers don't care about appearance, only functionality is important. In such cases, you can skip almost the entire styling code. Nowadays you can even make very good looking websites without a design thanks to CSS libraries like Tailwind or Bootstrap. Of course, these are boring out-of-the-box solutions with zero personalisation that are only needed internally. In such a case, the focus lies completely on functionality and usability. HCG: How important is a brand design for you as a programmer? Does it even need a brand design or is a logo alone enough ? Alejandro: It doesn't really matter to me personally, because I'm only involved in the implementation. Of course, if the design looks bad, the website will look bad too. So a brand design makes the whole thing more harmonious and easier on the eye. That should be important for the customer, not for me. HCG: How does the brand design have to be documented, what do you specifically need so that you can do a good job as a programmer? Alejandro: In brand design there are many important values that I can use, like fonts , colours and so on. But web design is important to me. It should contain all web elements and their variations, as well as how the website should look on different devices (desktop and mobile is sufficient in some cases). But above all it helps me to extract information that does not necessarily belong in the brand design , such as menus, footers, animations, spacing, on-hover effects, various assets (placeholder graphics, images and text), icons, favicon (usually a logo optimised for it) and much more. HCG: Have you ever created a website without a brand design? If yes, what was your experience? How did the project go? Alejandro: Yes, a few. As said, the focus then is on functionality and usability, but since the last one is pretty self-explanatory, briefing talks for it have almost always revolved around "what it's supposed to do" only. The process for this is almost completely the same, just without aesthetics. HCG: As a full stack web developer, what would you recommend to entrepreneurs who need a new website? What do you think they should pay particular attention to? Alejandro: In my opinion they should ask themselves: What is the goal of the website? What do we want to achieve with it? What kind of website should it be? Web application, web shop, web blog, landing page, reservation system or something else. Does it need four to six or 100 to 200 subpages? How often do we publish what on the website? What amount of data is used? Should visitors be able to log in? Should they be allowed to comment on blog posts? And so on. HCG: For you as a full stack web developer, what is a "good website"? Alejandro: For me as a developer, a good website must have simple UI elements, use modern techniques (e.g. lazy loading, dynamic routing), it must perform well, be SEO-optimised , offer responsiveness and accessibility and must not have any bugs. HCG: And what is a good brand design in your opinion? Alejandro: Uff, I can't say much about that, I'm afraid... I personally like minimalistic designs with small, cool animations here and there. HCG: Many thanks - or "muchas gracias" - for this insightful conversation. Alejandro: Con mucho gusto.

Time is money is time is money is time is money... A day has 24 hours. In the best-case scenario, we spend 8 hours of it sleeping. The number of hours we spend at work varies from person to person, ranging anywhere from four to 16 hours a day. As an entrepreneur, you may tend to spend a lot of hours in the office. Therefore, working efficiently is a game-changer to maximize productivity, reduce the number of hours spent in the office, have less stress as a result and achieve a better work life balance. I, too, have learned in the last 12 years of entrepreneurship that it is not always easy to implement maximum productivity in order to master a good work life balance. It requires tremendous discipline - in many ways. But there were a few things that really helped me. In this blog article, I would like to introduce you to the 15 hacks for more productivity and efficiency that I use myself in my business and can warmly recommend to every entrepreneur. 1. FIND OUT THE STATUS QUO First of all, you have to know the status quo. How much time do you spend on what kind of tasks? How many minutes a day do you spend on email, learning, distractions, actual paid client work, and so on. No matter how you go about it, if you want to increase your productivity, you first need to know exactly what you're spending your time on, down to the minute. I record my time twice a year for four weeks at a time. On a large notepad on my desk, I write down exactly ( not estimated!) how many minutes I need for which activity. Here it is particularly important to be relentlessly honest with yourself. Meaning: If I lose myself on a news website and scroll through it for a long time, read and jump from link to link, these minutes are also precisely documented. As I said, the first step is only to get the status quo. 2. ANALYZE THE STATUS QUO Once you have meticulously recorded the status quo for four weeks, the evaluation begins. It is best to categorize individual activities. To give you an example: social media for the business, private social media, emails, meetings, paid client work, personal organization, education, strategy, and so on. Add up the minutes for all categories and take a deep breath. Yes, you will be (very!) surprised and maybe shocked. That aha moment is normal and important. The good thing though: Now you really know what's going on and can act accordingly. What is possible to delegate? What can be automated? What brings money into the business and what doesn't (one of the most important considerations of all)? Certainty and clear facts are the best starting point for increasing your productivity. Record your time at regular intervals and compare your results. This way you know what works well and where there might still be room for improvement. 3. DELEGATE YES, BUT CONSIDER A FEW THINGS Depending on how the analysis of your time recording looks like, it can mean that you should look for professionals (regardless of whether they are freelancers or employees) who can do certain things better and faster than you. For example, we offer an all-round carefree service for our website clients to help them increase their productivity. Of course, delegating activities only makes sense if it pays off in terms of time and money. And don't forget, delegating tasks also means that the organization of delegating has to be taken into account here. For example, if you have to invest two hours a week to save ten hours a week, it makes a lot of sense. However, if the extra organization or administration that delegating entails is two hours a week and it only saves you two or three hours a week, then it doesn't make sense. 4. FOCUS VS. MULTITASKING Focus is always better than multitasking. Always without exception! Doing one task after the other with your full attention and focus is much faster and more effective than doing several tasks in parallel at the same time. Scientists explain that being distracted from one activity (regardless of how long the distraction lasts!) and focusing on another decreases brain performance by 20 to 40% when tasks are done in parallel rather than sequentially. Say goodbye to multitasking, it robs you of focus on what really matters. Give it a try, you'll be amazed how many hours a week you can save by focusing instead of multitasking. 5. FIRST THINGS FIRST Do the most important task of the day first - before (!) you open your emails, chat messages or social media. What is an important task ? One that pays your rent and your food. For several hours at a time, focus on that one project that matters and drives revenue. Some also call this deep work sessions . I personally like this expression very much. Deep work with maximum mental focus above everything else - that's what it's all about. Such a start to the day will save you several hours at the end of the day. 6. SPONTANITY KILLS EFFICIENCY Schedule things - in your job and your private life. I keep hearing "spontaneous is best". This may be true when you have so much free time that you don't know what to do with it. But you don't get things done that way - quite the opposite is the case. Most spontaneous things don't happen in the first place because "it doesn't work out spontaneously". I always have to smile when I hear "I'll do that spontaneously". Firstly, this is just an excuse for "I don't want to commit to it". Secondly, it means "it doesn't matter enough to me (otherwise I would commit myself to it)". Thirdly, the probability that something will take place is minimal. And that's exactly how it is in practice - it usually doesn't happen at all. "You never have time - unless you take it." What often leads to frustration in private life, leads to less efficiency in professional life and ultimately to less sales. Schedule things! You probably know from your own experience how pointless it is to say to yourself, "I'll do that when I have time." Those are the things that remain undone. That's why it's essential to schedule everything - from paid work for clients to internal organization to strategy work for your own business. At this point it is also important to mention that sufficient buffer times must be scheduled in. Otherwise it is impossible to keep to the schedule and actually implement it in daily practice. My rough rule of thumb: Depending on the activity, 20 to 40% buffer time should be added to tasks. 7. GREAT TOOLS I myself underestimated smart tools for far too long and made life unnecessarily difficult for myself . Be smarter than me and use digital tools wherever you can! You will see that it makes a huge difference in your daily work. Cheers to digitization! Here is a glimpse of the tools we currently use internally (as of June 2022): Trello including automations Billomat Loom (our customers are loving our screen recordings) don't disturb mode on the phone in combination with a secretary office, that is always available during normal office hours (Of course, here you need real people.) Calendly incl. Zoom integration (our customers are happy that it is so easy to make an appointment with us) Dropbox incl. Smart Sync scheduled blogging in the Wix dashboard Adobe Creative Cloud Libraries mobile dictation functions 8. SAME THINGS AT THE SAME TIME Working efficiently also means blocking similar activities and completing them in one go. This makes sure, you are mentally in the right mode and can work more efficiently and get everything done much faster. In addition to spending less time, you also achieve better quality results because you are more focused. Here is an example: Option 1 (11 hours): Emails - 30 min Social media - 15 min Calculate offer 1 - 45 min Emails - 15 min Internal organization - 15 min Write blog article 1 - 2 hours Paid client work - 1 hour Emails - 15 min Online meeting with client - 1 hour Calculate offer 2 - 30 min Finalize blog article 1 - 1 hour Phone call with employee - 15 min Internal organization - 15 min Emails - 15 min Social media - 15 min Write blog article 2 - 2 hours Emails - 15 min Option 2 (7 hours 45 minutes): Paid client work - 1 hour Calculate offer 1 - 45 min Calculate offer 2 - 15 min Internal organization - 15 min Online meeting with client - 1 hour Emails - 30 min Phone call with employee - 15 min Write blog articles 1 + 2 - 3 hours Social media - 30 min Emails - 15 min As you can see, option 2 gets you the same results - in less time. You can also see that in option 2 emails were only checked twice a day. Time saving in this example: 3 hours 15 minutes in just one day. That's 16 hours and 15 minutes saved per week! So you save yourself two full working days a week. 9. GOODBYE TO NOTIFICATIONS! Distractions from mobile phones, social media and various chat services make us believe that it is good to always be online and follow the latest trends, news or postings. What a productivity killer! Deliberately turn off all notifications on all your devices. The addictive factor of constantly being online should not be underestimated and robs valuable concentration and valuable time; actually 23 minutes per interruption (!) - see point 14 further down in this blog article. You pay for being online all the time with important focus and valuable lifetime, but you don't get anything useful in return. A really bad deal. 10. MAILBOX FENG SHUI It makes sense to unsubscribe from all newsletters that you delete more than you read. Of course, this applies to both online and offline newsletters. There is something liberating about cleaning out newsletters. Opt out of ads you don't really need. If you click delete more often than read , then you know what to do with it - throw it in the bin! 11. EMAIL VS. CHAT As already mentioned in point 8 above, it makes sense to block similar tasks. The same is true of communication. Even if there is a trend towards communicating via chat (e.g. WhatsApp), this is usually inefficient and problematic. Chat can't compete with good old email when it comes to productivity. Do you want to be "trendy" or do you want to be efficient? As an entrepreneur, the answer is obvious. It's a fact: the quality of communication is deteriorating more and more. This runs parallel to the increasing quantity of communication. There have never been so many ways to communicate with each other. And never before has there been so much miscommunication, misunderstandings and communication problems. Notice anything? Communication via chat is split up into many small chunks, often lined up incoherently and it often lacks logical connections. Many topics are started and touched upon, but not finished. Clear communication with final conclusions? Nope. Chats are often the cause of misunderstandings, misinterpretations and missing results from the conversation. In addition, things often get lost between chat message lines. You don't have all these problems in email communication (if you communicate correctly). Do you want to be trendy or do you want to be efficient ? As an entrepreneur, the answer is obvious. 12. MEETINGS YES, BUT THE RIGHT WAY! Meetings are probably one of the biggest productivity killers of all. They usually eat up more time than they get things going and tie up too many human (and thus also financial) resources. Block fixed times for meetings in advance. Spontaneous meetings are taboo! Also, be sure to stay away from meetings without a fixed topic and time agenda. 13. CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS As far as problem-solving ability is concerned, humanity is divided into two types: those who fight symptoms, and those who fight causes. Even if it is initially more work (and often uncomfortable) to get to the root of a problem and to solve the cause of the problem; You will save yourself a lot of valuable time (and nerves) in the middle and long run if you fight the causes instead of fighting the symptoms! You don't think it works? Think again! There are no problems, there are only solutions that you have not found yet. 14. "DO YOU HAVE A MINUTE?" Question: Are you an entrepreneur or the hospital emergency department? Honestly: How many urgent things in your everyday work are not urgent or important for your company, but merely urgent for other people who don't take their self-organization so seriously. Is it your job to iron out other people's lack of organization? No. I admit, the truth sounds harsh sometimes. But it is crucial to see things clearly for what they are - and act accordingly. Reconsider your personal availability! The don't disturb mode on the phone can help here, for example. And redirecting it to an external secretary, your business can is still available. According to a study by the University of California, Irvine (conducted by Gloria Mark), every interruption costs 23 minutes (!) to then be able to concentrate again on the activity you were doing before the interruption. No matter how long the interruption lasts! "Interruptions cost a company 31 hours a week." Efficiency expert Edward G. Brown explains this using an example from the financial industry. As he reports in an interview with the Washington Post , interruptions cost a company 31 hours a week. That's almost a full-time employee. 15. YES TO "NO" Saying yes to the wrong things means saying no to the right things. Read that again. " Saying yes to the wrong things means saying no to the right things." Think about what you want and where you want to be as an entrepreneur in the future. Say yes to the right things by saying no to the wrong things. WHY WE DON'T CHARGE BY TIME Some designers charge by the time they spend on a project - especially freelancers and one-man businesses. We generally calculate with flat rates, which are calculated depending on the service and the desired output for the client. Only in exceptional cases, or if the clients explicitly requests it, do we charge by the hour . The thing is: In the end, what counts is what the client gets from us - be it a first-class brand design from the logo to the website , an infographic , a brochure or an app magazine , for example. Logically, how we achieve the desired result is irrelevant to the client and is up to us. When you go to the Porsche dealer and buy a Porsche, you pay for the value of the car, which is a mix of quality and brand image, not how many hours it took to produce that car, right? Besides that, clients don't have enough insight and therefore often no understanding that the development of a first-class logo design takes well over 20 hours in most cases. CONCLUSION I admit, it is quite a mental effort to leave your own comfort zone to enter new organizational spheres. But you will see: Your life and your business as well as the qualitative output of your work will improve significantly. Your clients will also thank you in the end. And you will have more quality time for your private life. If this blog article has inspired you, you can also book a Pick my Brain session with me.

Our high degree of digitisation at HCG corporate designs not only brings many advantages for our clients, but also for ourselves. Since our team works remotely and has always been based in different locations, I also moved my own office from Innsbruck to Israel for five weeks - in particular to Tel Aviv. REMOTE WORKING IN ISRAEL My office in Tel Aviv was the co-working space of Damndesign - a beautiful office with all the amenities one could wish for and wonderful colleagues. In addition to the human two-legged friends, the furry four-legged friends have also grown on me (10% of Tel Avivis are dog owners). My special thanks go to Kreativwirtschaft Austria and Markus Haas of ADVANTAGE AUSTRIA for the great organisation. TECHNOLOGY & START-UP VIBE IN TEL AVIV Tel Aviv stands for high-tech, high digitisation and an incomparable start-up vibe. It was very inspiring to breathe that start-up air every day. On every corner you can see that Israel is a young country on the upswing. Nevertheless - and I find this remarkable - it is very human. It's more anonymous in a small town in Austria than in the "big city" of Tel Aviv. The mentality could hardly be more different. Tel Aviv feels like a mixture of a large village community and an economically booming city. I got the feeling that everyone in Tel Aviv wants to make it, a 45-hour work week (as an employee) is normal. I perceived Tel Avivis as hard-working, intelligent, cosmopolitan, very caring, but also very direct. For a Central European sometimes a bit too direct maybe. But hey, it's another culture. CYBER WEEK Cyber Week took place at Tel Aviv University from June 27th to 30th, 2022 - after a two-year break due to the pandemic. Here, representatives from politics, finance & investment, cyber security, energy industry and technology from all over the world came together to network and exchange ideas. As one of only two Austrian participants, it was an inspiration to network at the highest international level and to make good new contacts. VISITING WIX Another reason why I chose Tel Aviv for my temporary office abroad: Wix is at home here. As you may know, we are Wix Partners and have been creating professional website designs with Wix for many years. That's why it was a special pleasure and honor to meet a part of the Wix team in person. TYPOGRAPHIC ADVANTAGES FOR MULTI-LINGUAL DESIGN In Israel people speak Hebrew - a beautiful and interesting script. This language has a very special advantage - it is read from right to left. Why is this an advantage? Well, integrating Hebrew and English into a single design is much easier this way. An example: The logo of the Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv is bilingual. Two small black squares serve as a horizontal anchor for Tel Aviv and a vertical anchor for Bauhaus . On the right, the anchor serves as a visual starting point for English (reading from left to right). On the left, the anchor serves as a visual starting point for Hebrew (reading from right to left). As you can see, the different reading directions offer great design advantages, especially for centred designs. This is great for displaying signage, logo designs, billboards, etc. in multiple languages! The Tel Aviv University logo also benefits from the different reading directions, too. Here, the left half of the logo design below the logo icon is filled with the English text (reading left to right) and the right half is filled with the Hebrew text (reading right to left). Both languages meet in the middle. A nice thought! BAUHAUS FOR CULTURAL EQUALITY IN ARCHITECTURE Those interested in architecture may also know Tel Aviv as a Mecca for Bauhaus architecture. The White City of Tel Aviv counts the highest number of Bauhaus buildings in the world. The escape of Jews to Israel in the 1930s contributed significantly to this development. After all, a lot of functional living space had to be created at the time, which nipped potential sources of conflict in the bud. The Bauhaus idea is rooted in creating architecture for all people - regardless of origin, religion, mentality, age, social class, social background or climate. Usually, architecture is a visual monument to the culture and history of a region and its people. Bauhaus stands for the opposite and is intended as a pragmatic and purposeful all-round architectural solution for everyone , which should also endure in the future. All people should feel treated equally, nobody should feel discriminated against. Status, origin, skin colour, religion, etc. are irrelevant, the focus is on providing functional architecture to let people live as well as possible. This is how Bauhaus tries to nip any potential sources of conflict between religions and mentalities in the bud. A clever move! It's always amazing what architecture is capable of. That is why Bauhaus architecture is also called International Style - it can be used internationally. It is a no-go to turn the term Bauhaus into the term Bauhaus style . Bauhaus is not a style in that sense, but rather a philosophy. Bauhaus is not about beautiful buildings. Bauhaus doesn't aim at that. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder anyway. However, once you understand the meaning of Bauhaus, you at least find the idea behind it very beautiful (if not the buildings). CONCLUSION Tel Aviv is inspiring, cosmopolitan, vibrant, innovative, welcoming - and a real culinary delight. Tel Aviv is business and a positive example of how to drive the economy forward.

Honestly: How many t-shirts, hoodies or caps with an ugly logo print have you got given over the last few years? Well, before (!) the pandemic of course. Probably quite a few. It's amazing (or frightening) how quickly a chic fashion accessory can degenerate into a dreadful "don't want it" piece. Only because a business owner wants their logo to be big and bold on it. Oh dear. We can do better: We created the above fashion pattern for our client Spedination . The branding we developed a few years ago is beautifully integrated into super chic fashion items. A good logo design creates brand awareness. A good logo design also manages to be conveyed in terms of the overall brand communication. This also applies to the subtle translation of a logo (or parts of it) into a chic fashion pattern.

Travel broadens the horizon, provides new inspiration and gives my creativity a fresh boost. In this blog article I would like to take you to two countries that I traveled to in March/April 2022 to recharge my batteries. One of the two countries I visited, borders the Atlantic Ocean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. How unusual! I’m talking about... Panama! OH, HOW BEAUTIFUL PANAMA IS! The Panama Canal , completed at the beginning of the 20th century, contributes around ten percent to the GDP in service-oriented Panama and charges several hundred thousand US dollars (depending on ship size and load) per crossing of the American continent, which is only about 80 km wide at this point. As a corporate designer, my eyes immediately fell on the logo, of course. And I have to say, it fascinated me from the beginning - and still does today. Looking at the map and shape as well as the flag of Panama, one might assume that the blue star represents the North American continent, the red star the South American continent, the blue area the Pacific Ocean, and the red area the Atlantic Ocean. At least that was my first association. However, my research revealed that the flag is about something far less spectacular - the country's two major political players: blue representing the conservatives, red representing the liberals, white stands for peace (after all...) and the two stars represent the two political parties. But back to the logo design of the Panama Canal. The colors and stars of Panama’s flag are used in the logo. Both stars are skillfully connected and yet separated by an offset transit road - a clever association with the transit between North and South America. THE NATURAL PARADISE COSTA RICA After a few days in Panama and the Bocas del Toro Islands in the Caribbean Sea, we went on to the natural paradise of Costa Rica. Immerse yourself in some beautiful images and recharge your batteries too!

Does this situation sound familiar to you? You are at an event (some are taking place again), you get into conversation with various people, you network and have a positive exchange with like-minded people. You might also exchange ideas with an online marketing expert about various online marketing and SEO topics. If you are not an online marketer yourself and have a website of your own, it is quite likely that the online marketing "expert" will chuck sales arguments right into your face - some more, some less aggressive ones. You might find this uncomfortable and sip your glass of wine before finally running off. In the digital environment, the reach is of course much greater: It is not uncommon for entrepreneurs to receive spam mails from online marketers they don't know, informing them that this or that would not work on their website or that the website would not even be listed in the Google search engine - without even checking out the website beforehand. This scam is often even used to sell a website analysis, which should show whether there are any errors on the website at all (which of course speaks against the website error statements in the email altogether). What do you think how the result of such an "analysis" looks like? Especially when it fully automatically arrives in your mailbox after just a few minutes. Hello scammers. (This is a sales method that's even taught in coachings here and there.) Sometimes certain error messages are correctly (well, coincidentally) spotted, but mostly it's just a sales tactic to scare people - in most cases completely unjustified. In our opinion, this is a brash, impolite and, above all, unserious method to get new customers. Rarely, but about every four or five years, it also affects some of our website clients - funnily enough, always at the same time within a few hours, before it's quiet again for several years. Some of our website clients forward those spam mails to us and (understandably) don't know what to do with them. Each time it involves untrue statements and claims that are proven false. Of course, our website clients understand very quickly that it's a scam - yes, we have smart clients :-) - but it's still as annoying as a mosquito on a tropical night. We then create a short screen recording to reassure the client and show that all the "errors" the online marketing "expert" addresses, do not exist and are fictitious. Proven facts beat aggressive sales - the truth always wins in the end. BUT WHY SO AGGRESSIVE? But why are some online marketers so nervous? Certainly, there are always such and such - but the greed for profit really makes some people go very (well, too ) far. In our opinion, the reason behind that aggression is another one: Artificial intelligence, machine learning and smart, digital algorithms are on the rise and are optimising the performance of many advertising campaigns. And yes, the Internet giant Google has also brought even more acceptance into this sensitive topic with machine learning and the release of Google Analytics 4 ("GA4"). Some online marketers feel obviously forced to act increasingly aggressively, because intelligent 360° solutions and more and more artificial intelligence are making their existence less and less justified. SEO PERFORMANCE OF RENOWNED AGENCIES In the research for this blog article, we dug into the deepest depths of the SEO, keyword and ranking analyses of various well-known advertising, design and online marketing agencies. The analysis results are all based on key figures that were evaluated on the independent SEO platform by Neil Patel ( the SEO guru par excellence - and no, this is not a paid advertising link) for the location "Germany". The result surprised us a little bit. The most renowned design and advertising agencies in Germany hardly rank on the 1st Google page for keywords that are most relevant for them and have a high search volume (e.g. "logo design"), and are far behind in the ranking. These agencies rank for.... .drum roll .....the names of their clients! It's important to mention that these are not backlinks, but ordinary text on the website in which the customer is mentioned. Undoubtedly, well-known agencies have well-known clients - it kind of reminds us of the chicken and egg principle. QUALITY BEFORE QUANTITY Once again it shows: SEO is important, but not everything. Not even the best or most renowned design and advertising agencies in Germany manage to get into the top Google rankings for the relevant topics and keywords, despite the greatest SEO knowledge and a high marketing budget. SEO is not a sprint but a marathon that requires endurance and time. Even the big, renowned online marketing agencies are increasingly distancing themselves from "the main thing is high keyword density and technical tricks" and are marching in big steps towards holistic approaches like "regular quality content" . SEO SERVICES FOR OUR CLIENTS In general, all websites we create are indexed in Google within 1 minute after going live. Our SEO setup service is included in all our packages and covers the most common SEO basics. From a technical point of view, the website has a good basis for a good Google ranking and can be read and indexed by Google without any issues. Our SEO advanced service goes even further, optimises the entire website even more deeply (on-page search engine optimisation), also in terms of Google Rich Snippets. Our SEO services are continuously adapted and improved to get the best value for our website clients. But it should also be said here: These are technical basics that do not replace good content on the website. Remember the marathon! FACTS UND NUMBERS FROM OUR WEBSITE CLIENTS We like facts and transparency. The following images give you an insight into the SEO performance for our website clients that booked our SEO services : The graphs show by what percentage the performance of various SEO parameters in the same country, in the same industry and in the same period of time outperforms that of competitors. The larger the blue area in the graph, the better the performance compared to the competitor. A quick insight into the SEO performance of websites that have not booked our SEO services: (Source: Wix dashboard, benchmark analysis) ONLINE MARKETING WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Our website clients who want to advertise on Facebook and Instagram benefit from machine learning and advertising that is enriched with artificial intelligence and optimised fully automatically. The artificial intelligence gets the maximum out of the advertising budget, executes all tests independently and in real time in order to permanently improve success on Facebook and Instagram. This way, the online marketing budget can be adjusted flexibly, our clients are not tied to any restrictive contracts and they save a lot of money on top of that. The advantages of artificial intelligence are impressive. OUR EXPERIENCES WITH SEO, SEA & ONLINE MARKETING We have invested a 5-digit sum in advertising, marketing and sales for HCG corporate designs over the years and have been able to gain a lot of valuable experience. In the early years, a lot was done on our own (for budgetary reasons), later this was outsourced to online marketing agencies in order to optimise the ROI (return on investment). After all, we, too, only want to work with professionals! Our conclusion: We should not have done certain things. But marketing is always such a thing, you know. There is no magic formula that works the same for everyone. Some sales strategies even backfired on us (funnily, the most expensive ones). And yes, a lot is measurable. But a lot is also not measurable. After all these experiences, it would sometimes have been better to listen to our own gut feeling than to some strategists from outside. But that's life. In conversations with several entrepreneurs who we are friends with (from small to medium-sized companies to big global players), we got a similar picture: “Don't even start with Google Ads unless you have a budget of 3,000 to 5,000 euros per month and can run those campaigns for several months in a row. The result for us: The ROI (return on investment) was unfortunately only a small fraction of the money we invested.” Take some time to mentally digest that. It was hard for us too. CONCLUSION Different things work differently for different businesses. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. At HCG corporate designs, we believe in great content , a high level of quality and service , continuous SEO optimisation on our own website, organic backlinks, interesting blog articles , a strong presence on social media and, of course, recommendations from our clients, who probably are the best advertisement for us. In short: It is a colorful bouquet of many things - and has been for 12 years so far. Remember the marathon! ;-)